Page 59 of Shielding Instinct

Earlier, when he’d come upon Roy, Hawkeye had reviewed the few ways he’d seen rescuers get people onto a board. And he wasn’t satisfied with any of them under these circumstances.

On his belly, this man would be a recovery. There was no way he’d make it to shore alive. Of course, that might be true no matter what Hawkeye did next.

If Hawkeye somehow got an unconscious man faced up and held in his legs the way he’d done with Roy, it wouldn’t be the same outcome.

The guy would be dead long before they reached the shore.

What this man needed was CPR. And that was impossible on the water without a hard enough surface to use to compress his heart and pump his blood manually.

Still thinking the situation through, Hawkeye drew up beside the man. “Cooper, jump.”

As the words left his mouth, Cooper was in the water, paddling up to the guy and nudging him.

Hawkeye appreciated the sharp barks because they would alert people on the shore that there was a find.

As Hawkeye got into the water, he flipped his surfboard upside down so the fins were facing skyward. Immediately grabbing the man’s wrist, Hawkeye pulled it across the board and flipped the board back upright.

It was an easier maneuver than he’d imagined.

A child could have done that, he thought, as the board was once again turned down.

The man was on top, face down.

That was the problem with that particular technique.

If there was any chance of surviving, the man needed air.

Without mouth-to-mouth, there was zero chance for this guy. The distance to shore was too many minutes away. Minutes equal brain cells.

The guy’s wedding ring glinted from hands bloated by sea water as Hawkeye dragged the man’s arm above his head.

It wasn’t pretty what came next.

Hawkeye grunted, pushed, and tugged.

An arm here, a foot there. A head lolling. A leg in the water.

Yelling, “Come on! Come on!” as he worked and maneuvered, knowing that time was tick-tick-ticking.

Finally, Hawkeye had the man on his back. He peeled back the guy’s eyelid and touched his eyeball to check the corneal reflex, and by God, the man blinked.

Hope!

With his knees on either side of the man, contorting his body to align himself, Hawkeye did his best to give a first breath.

Then he untethered the board from his Ankle and held the cuff out to Cooper.

“Cooper, dude, get us to shore. Find Reaper. Cooper, pull. Find Reaper.”

Trusting his dog, Hawkeye hunkered forward, performing the possibly life-saving breaths, hoping someone back on the beach would see this and get involved.

Cooper had been trained on how to drag something in the water. But that had been in the Cerberus pool, or a few times on a lake.

He’d pulled a lightweight raft and a swim ring, nothing as heavy and cumbersome as two men on a surfboard. And certainly not through an agitated sea.

But Cooper knew what was needed of him.

There seemed to be a point on the beach that Cooper had targeted, and he was swimming with all his might.

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